


Survival

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: Pan Am
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Her family doesn't like to talk about the war." Anke character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival

**Disclaimers:** Pan Am, the rights to the show and its characters do not belong to me. No money was made by this.  
 **Spoilers:** 1x03 Ich bin ein Berliner  
 **Pairing:** none

* * *

Her family doesn’t like to talk about the war. No one does. Because it always raises questions.

“How did you survive?”

And it’s never just that. Behind that, there’s the lingering accusation. Why did you survive when other’s didn’t? What have you done to buy your life?

Her family had a bakery. And she knew that her uncle brought bread to the people in uniform. The soldiers. Luftwaffe. The ones in the planes. Planes that would not rain bombs on the city but defend it.

And her uncle hated it. He hated them. When he took her, they always sat in the car for at least ten minutes. He kept staring at the wheel and drawing shaky breaths.

“Just once more.” he would whisper. “We need food.” he’d say. Or “Anke needs shoes.” or “Hans needs pants.” When he thought she was asleep, she heard him say “Anke needs parents.” sometimes, too.

She was made to hold his hand the whole time, never allowed to slip away, never getting out of his sight. Not that she would have run, because the men scared her. With their uniforms and their shouts and their frowns. And the pistols they carried. She knew what those could do. Had seen their neighbors lined up on the street one evening, the soldier shouting, reading out their names and crimes _. Bang_ , the pistol went and one fell to the floor. _Bang,_ it went again and another dropped to the ground. _Bang. Bang. Bang_.

After the war, her parents told her not to talk about it. Not to say what they had done during the war.

One day, when she came home from school, she had shouted at them, angry. “You helped the Nazis!” she had screamed and thrown her pillow at her mother when she went into her room to ask what was wrong with her, why she didn’t want to come eat with them.

Her uncle came, late in the evening. She glared at him. He had helped them, too. He had brought them the bread. Without it, the Nazis would have been defeated sooner.

“I love you.” her uncle had said, his voice soft. “And I love my sister, your mother. And I love your father.” he continued, drawing a deep breath. “And without the Nazis, we would not have had bread to sell. We would not have had money to buy shoes for you. Or pants for your father. We would not have had coats when the winter came. Or candles.”

He had sat down on her bed and stared at his hands. “And I wanted to put poison in the bread. I almost did. But what would they have done?” he asked her, looking at her for the first time since he had entered her room. “They would have taken me away. And they would haven taken your father, too, and your mother. They would have killed us, and then who would have given you something to eat? Who would have looked after Anke, my little niece, my sunshine?”

Anke had just stared at him, tears burning in her eyes.

“We gave food to the Nazis. In return, they gave us the supplies so we could make bread for them and other people, too.” he muttered, shaking his head. “We did what everyone did, Anke. We did everything we had to do to survive. To safe ourselves and to save you. And it was selfish and it was unfair, and other people may not have done it. But we did. And now we have to live with that.”

And now Anke did what she had to do. Because even if there were times when you could not afford a conscience if you wanted to survive, there would come a time after when you did, and when that time came, she wanted to be able to tell people what she had done and not be ashamed that she had survived.

 _fin._


End file.
